1780 HT: www.christianity.com When the church becomes a state-supported official religion, churchmen tend to become tepid officeholders. The zeal characteristic of the Scottish clergy in John Knox’s day had become diluted by the early 19th century. Hard as it is to believe, the moderate majority of Scotland’s preachers resisted Sunday schools, saying they would put ideas…
1858 FEW MEN could have overcome the blows that rained upon John Mason Peck in 1820. For three years, he had worked diligently as a missionary along the Mississippi River—the frontier of the young United States. However, a serious bout of jaundice threatened his life and left him penniless. A beloved brother-in-law died. Death also…
1559 In response to a sermon by John Knox, a Reformation mob burns churches in Perth, Scotland, and instructs the friars to hold mass no more. 1727 IMAGINE THE STIR twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn created in Berlin when he revived Johann Sebastian Bach’s neglected masterwork, The Saint Matthew Passion. On this day, 11 March 1829, a thousand…
320 AD 40 Men Died on Ice for Christ HT: Dan Graves “CONSIDER—you alone of Caesar’s troops defy him! Think of the disgrace you bring upon your legion. How can you do it?” Governor Agricola was speaking to forty soldiers in the 12th Legion of the Roman army who refused to offer sacrifice to the…
HT: Christianity.com 1837 In 1639, a non-conformist preacher named Abraham Pierson landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. One hundred and ninety eight years later, on this day, March 6, 1837, one of Abraham’s most illustrious descendants, Arthur T. Pierson, was born in New York City. He was the ninth of ten children. Like his forefather Abraham, he became…
HT: Christian History Institute 1546 GEORGE WISHART preached reformation in Scotland between 1543 and 1546. Cardinal David Beaton reacted violently against him and met violence himself. That, in a nutshell, is the story of the two men. Trained at the University of Aberdeen, Wishart became a teacher of Greek. Accused of heresy by the Bishop of…
HT: Christian History Institute YOUNG RICHARD WURMBRAND, a Romanian Jew who described himself as an atheist and a Marxist, stole to get food when he had to as a child, became a successful businessman, married Sabina Oster (also a Jew), and lived a life of self-indulgence. Worn down by destructive behaviors, he contracted tuberculosis. His doctor…
HT: Christian History Institute 1546 George Wishart, a Scottish reformer, is arrested by Roman Catholic authorities, and will be burned to death as a heretic the next day by order of Cardinal David Beaton. 1638 Scotland’s national covenant is signed at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, giving rise to the Covenanter movement among Scottish Presbyterians, insisting that…